Anchored
by iphis15
Summary: Anton/Larrikin and Anton/Erskine, with a very vague hint of Pleasant/Vex in the background. Oneshot, T for Insinuation, homoerotism, and a very small amount of heteroerotism. Written for the fabulous Evangeline Evergreen.


Every time I let myself go, I lose a small piece of myself. I know that it shouldn't work that way, that it technically does not, but I also know myself, and I know that it is true. With every subsequent usage of my power, for every occasion when I split into two, I fragment even further than I am already broken.

What is it that I lose? My control, maybe. My ability to take joy and pleasure in small things, and then larger ones. The emotional climate of a particularly wonderful day. Affection for those without whom I could live.

Slowly, one by one, the components that make me who I am leave me, and they become the domain of the gist, and slowly it is controlling me, more and more, and one day, I will be powerless to it, if this does not stop. I will be nothing more to it than it is now to me – less, even.

This will stop, though, because there is one person who I will never, can never forget, even if it means my life, because the world will mean even less to me than it does now without even his memory.

* * *

><p>We all had our rituals in those days, so many decades ago. Things that would help us make it through the days and the nights and all those desperate, hopeless moments that crept between, and no matter how much I protested his frivolity, his lightheartedness, it was what kept me going, kept me intact in the face of the gist that threatened to consume me entirely. While Dexter and Skulduggery flirted with each other, grim and silent, while Ghastly and Saracen were thinking of nothing but their meaningless dalliances with empty-headed girls and Corrival and Ravel and Hopeless were missing their homes, Larrikin was playing the fool and I was falling for him, completely and totally.<p>

It hurt, how difficult it was to restrain myself when he was involved. All the anger, the jealousy, the lust that I ever thought that I could avoid, that I thought I could funnel into my gist, become fully apparent around him, and the worst thing was that he never knew it. Even so, he was completely genuine, always, and only an idiot would say that we had no bond. We did.

I loved him. I loved his flippancy, and his bravery and his selflessness, even though that was what stole him from me in the end. Now, after the fight is over, I need to have something to bring me through the hours that seem to meld into each other, and he is that talisman. He is my anchor, and I would be nothing without him.

It pains me to see the others, because it reminds me of the discipline I once had, and it weighs me down with guilt at being so weak as to lose so much of myself so quickly. It hurts even more to wonder why they are here and he is not.

When I look into Erskine's eyes, I see his honesty and I see the love that he has for me, and I know that it is genuine. I know that he would die for me, and that I would still die for him, though you could say that of any of us, any of the shells that were once, and still are, in one way or another, Dead Men. I also know that I can never match that.

I want him, now, and I need him, almost as much as I needed Larrikin. He is an anchor too, in a lesser way – dependable, strong, caring. In the end, though, in the grand scheme of things, we both know that his love will not be enough.

I care for him greatly, but in the end, we both know that he will never be Larrikin. We know that I could live without him, as cruel as that sounds, because I could. I would never lose myself without his support, because he is not what I built my entire existence upon, and his is not the face that I see when I close my eyes, and his voice is not what I hear when I think of heaven.

I am everything to him. I know this, know this as undeniable fact. I know how much I mean to him, know how much I am his safety and his surety. I know how badly he needs me, and I try to live up to all this.

I try, but it isn't all that I could be doing. I am realistic, and I know myself, and I know that there is only one man in the world for whom I would give up everything, and I know that that man is not and will never be Erskine Ravel.

I think he knows this, and I don't think he cares. I wish he would, and I wish that he would find someone else to support and to comfort and to desire above all else, because he is truly a good person, a great person, and I know that, deny it as he might, I am nothing but ballast, nothing but stability, and he shouldn't have to deal with that. He should be freed.

I don't believe he ever will, though, because if it were that easy simply to unroot yourself, to give up the one thing that means that you are more than a passing thought in a chaos of voices, then I would tie myself to him, in an instant. I think I really would choose him, if he was amenable and if Larrikin had never been.

He was, though, and so I know that I will never be able to love Erskine Ravel like he loves me.

* * *

><p>Every time I let out my gist, I think that I should never do so again, because it is doing nothing but adding more distance between Erskine and I. Invariably, I repeat this fool's action, because it reminds me so much of Larrikin.<p>

It reminds me of the freedom, of the giddiness, of being around him, of losing all restraint and not caring, because he was always there to keep me steady. It reminds me of days that were maybe better and definitely worse but I would in any case give anything to return to.

In losing myself, I find him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This is for the fabulous fabulous Evangeline Evergreen, who not only provided me with incentive and a deadline (a very happy anniversary of birth to her!), but also a plot. =D**

**~Mademise Morte, February 6, 2012.  
><strong>


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